


Splitting of the Real

by Graythornian



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Brothers, Cults, Ed forced to grow, F/M, Family, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Supernatural - Freeform, Time Travel, War Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-12 06:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19941424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graythornian/pseuds/Graythornian
Summary: “This was supposed to be routine. In the list of mundane bullshit, it went paperwork, reports, and diplomatic attendance. Being a "magic monkey," Roy called it. There to march about in a well-pressed uniform giving firm— but not overly aggressive— handshakes to foreign dignitaries, reminding them that Amestris did, yes, indeed, have human nuclear weapons they could just as easily parade out of this cocktail party and into battle.”The story happens differently this time. An increasingly powerful former slave state. A truth-telling crystal. Ishval is happening again, and Ed seems to be the only one intent on stopping it.Except this time, Ed will have to do it as Al falls in love and moves on— from Ed’s own reality.Updates every Monday except I've edited ch. 1 and am re-editing ch. 2 right now for flow and characterization. Part political drama, part supernatural, and some RoyAi and AlxOC. Rated T mainly for language cause, they tongue-lashin', ale-waggin' soldiers come on.





	Splitting of the Real

**Author's Note:**

> Hello readers :) the inspiration for this plot was to explore Ed and Al’s relationship. It’s a supernatural exaggeration of what I see to be the logical end to their different personalities. Then there’s some romance and politics thrown in for fun.

* * *

Chapter 1: On the Precipice

* * *

The room is spinning and war has broken out. Ed thinks he hears Al shout, but the words are dulled by a close detonation. Shredded marble gushes forth. He holds steadfast, digging his heels into the floor made malleable.

"The crystal Al! Shit! Get the— thing!"

Debris muddies his vision. But he can see blurs of movement- grappling bodies, the cool light of enemy alchemy, half-erect pillars, the crumbling throne. And a sword, like a stalking shark, angling towards him without losing any of its momentum.

Driving right at his neck.

 _There aren't supposed to be weapons. There aren't supposed to be weapons. There aren't even_ —

This was supposed to be routine. In the list of mundane bullshit, it went paperwork, reports, and diplomatic attendance. Being a "magic monkey," Roy called it. There to march about in a well-pressed uniform giving firm— but not overly aggressive— handshakes to foreign dignitaries, reminding them that Amestris did, yes, indeed, have human nuclear weapons they could just as easily parade out of this cocktail party and into battle.

 _The only difference_ — Ed's head throbs trying to remember Riza's brief— _was the foreign power_ — and its rapidly changing status in the eyes of Amestris. As long as Ed can remember, their guests— the Goreans— have been a distant slave colony, squashed into servitude by the more politically notable nation of Xing. A textbook morality tale on the pitfalls of nonviolence. Shit, before today, the only kid he'd seen with those elongated features had been grovelling at a West Side breadline, refusing to trade religious trinkets to pad his gut.

 _Then, the Goreans had an uprising. Like Ishval, but if the Ishvalans had priests that could chant you to forever-sleep._ Somewhere along the line, they'd set their spiritual teachers to the business of establishing their own nationhood. And the results were chilling. Ed had no idea life could be snipped so cleanly. It was some kind of alchemy, he was sure. But, unlike Roy's all-corroding burn, or the way Scar curdles your inner organs, a death by Gorean alchemy wasn't at all messy. It would swathe you in healing light- and you'd just _be_ unmade. Moments ago, they'd seen Sergeant Fuery's face sink into the-

_Fuck. It was going so well._

He hadn't even been thinking about the peace. That's how well the two sides got on. Ed and Al had been darting about, making polite conversation. Al was particularly charmed by the way Goreans mirrored the Amestrians to fit in: by slouching a bit lower to match their height, by articulating a bit more fervently, by drinking less responsibly. The Amestrians, too, had been gentler to accommodate their visitors. And as barrels were uncorked, and Amestrians noted the attractiveness of their visitors, they'd all melded together in a blushing clump of locals and foreigners, pawing too liberally at each other, forgetful of origin.

Ed remembers the flirtations. He remembers catching snippets of conversation between Sergeant Fuery and a diplomat, on his "revolutionary filing system" which combines the "intuition of the Carmel-Pollard system" with the "depth of the Ernheart system," which he assumes is "wanna screw?" for nerds.

He'd also seen a group of female clerical workers swamp an objectively attractive Gorean. And he'd seen Roy, not admitting to feeling challenged, but instead dragging priestess after priestess into a smooth waltz, their robes blooming about.

It was impressive. Infuriatingly so. And it's what distracted Riza long enough for them to sneak out.

Ed hadn't really expected to be watched so closely. That alone should have betrayed the importance of this particular event. After the ceremonies, as soon as he and Al felt for the door, they found Riza instead. They realized then that she, and every other adult they knew, had been tracking them out of the corner of their eyes for hours.

In typical Riza fashion, her tone was stern, but belied by a big sisterliness she couldn't shroud. "This is sensitive. Behave." Riza said, already softening. She handed them a shallow mug. "It's water, but you can blend in. You're representing the crown, so go party like you are."

Al cracked some cute joke about not having kidneys. Riza laughed, unmoved.

And when she turned and walked away, Ed had felt the whole room watching him, like a lidless hive.

That's when he knew he was going to get to that goddamn crystal.

That crystal- it looked like something an ancient queen would find nestled in the maw of an underwater ruin: blue, brilliant, and impossibly spherical, but then the light would shift, and an angular facet would appear. Then another. Or a thousand. A thousand facets, fragmenting the crystal's surface and multiplying until they melded again into one, smooth, ball.

When Al first saw light shatter along its infinite sides, Ed heard him daydream out loud: "Morphing, changing…" Both felt that there was an alchemic presence to it that dwarfed any common quartz they'd pursued in the past.

And the fact that the Goreans had marched it out on an altar to dance about in crystal-worship. Every visiting nation crammed in an obsolete tradition or two. But this- this felt gorged with the _now_. Priestesses prayed with the grace of their step, fluffing layers of tulle about themselves, every gesture labored, every breath measured. Once he actually tuned into the hymns, he realized that Goreans held some real beliefs about the power of this thing. That it-

_...opened the eye of the seeker… caught the tongue of the perjurer…_

A Truth Telling crystal. That's what's getting him killed at this very moment.

Having fumbled a last attempt to slant the floor beneath his attacker and thwart his sure blow, Ed readies himself for the dig- the plunging of metal into the nape of his neck; the severing of his spine.

Except nothing comes. The striking sword clatters to the ground, cooked.

And he hears that goddamn voice. "You're letting up, Fullmetal. He wasn't even an alchemist."

"Oh fuck off." Ed knows he isn't at the top of his game today.

Though, while today and the unusual bullshittery of the last hour played a role, truth be told, he's been out of it for the last while.

In part— It's his growing fatigue for military life, which, patterned like any other profession, has shrunk around his shoulders like an ill-fitting shirt. It's that there have been so few leads on the philosopher's stone in the last while that it's begun to feel like a figment of his imagination. And it's his disillusionment with just how much bureaucracy and petty politics dictate his job.

He really does feel like a dog. Hearing that nickname has begun to bite.

"Brother!" Al calls, "Are— Are you okay?" Al trembles, coming up towards him.

Shell shocked, Ed reassures his brother as best he can. "It's okay. Let's seriously just find that crystal."

He says this, but the brothers aren't actually 'finding' the crystal. They know who last held it, and they know where that person— or rather that person's body— is.

Her body was the first to drop.

Chief Corne's imposing corpse lies near the throne, 6 feet nine of cascading medals. She wasn't actually too tall for a Gorean, but her broadness and the ease with which she moved— those lent her a sense of sexless magnetism.

So approaching her now feels a little like closing in on a mountain in the horizon. Even in death, she feels larger than life. Her limbs splayed and her eyes glass, she is still the peoples' champion.

Ed keeps replaying their conversation in his mind. They'd had one. Just one exchange. When they'd finally slipped away in their fretful search for the crystal, Ed and Al had stumbled in on the woman— alone.

"The stuff outside- it's not up to your underage drinking standard?" The first thing Chief Corne said paralyzed them in place. All her medals tinkled. "Your King's shitting his pantaloons. Maybe shouldn't have brought the Truth Teller."

Ed pointed to the crystal. This?

"I know. Who ever thought truth and diplomacy would go together? It's just that in this particular case, the waft of bullshit is too strong to ignore. Hope you don't take offense." Corne took a swig of whiskey. "I'm a talker, sorry. Sit down. I want to grasp…" she made a 'that' gesture towards the other couch.

They sat and the velvet didn't give way like it should. Made for larger people, Ed guessed.

"You're not kids, I can tell that much."

Ed warmed at that. Between the crystal and his general admiration for the woman, he felt raw and yielding. "We're not. We're alchemists. I'm Ed, he's Al."

"Tell me, Ed and Al, your people, despite all the annexing and espionage committed by their Fuhrer—they don't like war, do they?" Her eyes crinkled prettily, and it's the first time they noticed the elegance of her Gorean features. It really was as if her presence eclipsed any particular detail. Even now, remembering every word uttered and ever idiom chosen, Ed couldn't tell you the colour of her eyes.

"No people like war." He responded.

"Wrong. Goreoo loves war right now. War is new, war is fresh. War is suffering, but we've suffered before. So what? Suffering with victory- now that's different. That's a political platform. That's the spark of change."

"It's a chest full of medals," challenged Ed.

"Exactly," picked up Corne, "I mean, I'm painting a civilization with a single stroke. We've got peace in our bones, we do. The priestly asshats remind me every day."

"We didn't think Goreans would ever fight."

She leaned forward and looked even larger than before. "You never thought about us at all."

Al shook his head: "That's not true."

"It's okay, we were a sad, forgettable footnote to the East Pacific war. What I really want to know is what the barmaid gossip is, and I don't think I'm cute enough to charm it out of a local," she smiled gruffly, "so— are your people itching for a fight?"

Ed paused. "No," he finally squeezed out, "no, I think our fighters are tired. I know we look all shiny and warmongering, but…"

"Guilty," said Al, "They feel guilty, or at least the ones who last fought against the Ishvalans feel that way."

Chief Corne sighed contentedly. "Amestrians have a heart. That's galloping news." She set her glass onto the desk and took the blue crystal into her hands. "Alright, screw off before Bradley gets back. Thanks boys."

They tore themselves away from the room, and the last thing they saw was the blue disappear into her right pocket.

_The right pocket._

Ed reaches for it.

And his fingers brush up against shards. The crystal is there, but— not whole. Fractured light ground to fractured stone. Drained of that vibrant blue, it's just gravel against his fingers.

"Shit. The crystal broke." Bile fills him. Before he processes the frustration, his own fingernails score the skin of his palm. "It was fake. Costume jewellery."

"Don't worry, Brother, it was just a guess! Even if it, um, didn't turn out to be anything, nothing is really lost."

 _Except that was our ticket out,_ thinks Ed. Without the philosopher's stone, Ed and Al are bound to the gig. And, in this very instance, that means that whatever fuck-up happened today— they're a part of it.

Air envelops Ed, stifling and fleshy. The final — 'BRAP! BRAP!' — of gunfire jars him, and the room feels real again, filling his senses. It's quiet, he realizes. For a moment now, the room has been full and quiet. The deafening silence of a battle won.

"Sorry but, well what's going to happen now?" Al asks Roy.

 _What will happen now?_ What _would_ happen now that they'd killed dozens of Gorean diplomats? Diplomats who'd just seen their war hero shot in cold blood. Who'd had every right in their mind to retaliate. Remembering Corne's slack jaw and sudden collapse, nausea coagulates in the pit of his stomach. Ed has seen this— and the remaining spectrum of vile shit one human can do to another—before. But the deaths that awaken such profound unease within him are always the unjust ones.

Ed had felt her fall in love with the idea of an Amestrian-Gorean alliance. A war hero with a true moral backbone— that shit is rare. It's precious. In short, it screwed hard with Ed's sense of what should and should not happen in the world. _This_ should not have happened. Not to her, not to the rest of them. Ed cannot bring himself to condemn the ensuing attacks. He can only imagine what he'd do if a foreign soldier shot _his_ colonel—

That's what it looked like to the Goreans: an ambush to take out their most lauded commander. A foreign blue-coat murdering their own.

Ed still can't match the face to the deed. He knows that when he whipped away from the body and traced the 'crack!' back into the crowd, all the way to a wheezing barrel— that, poised behind the pistol, he found…

_Major Sergeant Fuery._

But fuck if that makes sense to him. No one's made a peep about it yet, especially tight-lipped Roy.

Already, Ed's mind has started to go to work on piecing together the murder. The deep unease he's feeling, it's more than just thoughtless indignation. Ed files away a quick string of observations: _I know it's because of something I saw, or heard. For one, the sound came after the Chief was struck. Much too late. The bullet can't have been what felled her_. _She was built like a bodybuilder._ _One shot to the chest shouldn't have killed her on impact._

"Now that we've been forced to massacre half of their delegation," says Roy, "and the half that's alive thinks we took out a hit on their war hero," Ed hears a deadness in his tone. It might be defeat. "There's not a single Gorean who won't answer that call to arms. Sorry kids. We're at war now."

"At what? Without an investigation? What if we sent them a delegation, explained to them what happened?" Al pleads.

"It's not that simple. Besides—" he puts a hand up as the brothers look about to pitch in, "—it's not my decision. We can't keep standing here. I have shit to do, and you have to get your affairs in order."

"Our affairs?" Says Ed. "What do you mean our affairs?"

But the Colonel is gone.

Before the crackling of corpses has settled, before the dead have been laid to rest, his words come true. Orders from the very top:

Twenty-three Goreans unaccounted for. Amestris is operating under the assumption that the Gorean motherland knows everything, and that she is furious.

As promised, every Amestrian soldier has three hours to get their affairs in order.

"Just like that." Ed slumps on the steps of a dimmed café, lumps of croissants still stenciled in the glass.

While soldiers said farewell to family and signed wills and slipped pictures of their children into their knapsacks, the brothers had wandered out into the south-east part of the city, with their affairs settled long ago. Settled in the smolders of their childhood home.

"I don't want to fight. Not the Goreans," says Al, "When we do, it's always against people who are threatening us or others. But now we're fighting a whole country, like a whole _country_ of people just like you and I or Riza or Hughes."

"It's wrong." Ed feels it— that _wrongness—_ prickling from his temples to the tip of his toes.

"And Fuery couldn't have…"

"I don't believe it. Whoever planned this shit is laughing their murderous ass off right now."

Streetlights glower, running on gas and moth-dust. Behind, the night is black and textured. He feels as if a hollow moon has settled upon them, plunging them into a dark age where life is elastic and drinks turn to war in the crack of a gun.

"What if we spoke to Roy and made him look into who could have done this? I know it's a bit… a lot of a stretch, but I just don't believe that he's okay with this."

"I don't think he's _okay_ with this, per say. But— remember— he's an Ishvalan veteran. He's got blood on his hands and is somehow still working for the people who made him do it. Someone like that must have a real good reason to keep following orders- or just really well-practiced cognitive dissonance."

"Oh."

"If we're bound by the military, we can't affect the given outcome. Not in the direction we'd like. We're essentially the arms and feet of the Fuhrer, driven sheerly by his will. I know this is fucked, because— I mean, this job, the people— they've been good for you, but—" he is suddenly animated by a painful bout of restlessness which springs him to his feet. "—we can't stay, Al. We really fucking can't."

Silence. Al is stone. When he is still like that, pinned into place by his own resignation, even Ed feels his throat clog. _He looks like a statue._ A real suit of armour that might never move again.

"You're right," he creaks, gently, to life. "Sorry, you're right. There's nothing we can do."

"No, that's not what I'm saying. We _can_ do something, just not here. Not as we are now. We need to, what's the word, uh— desert."

"Okay." he nods first with little conviction, then quicker. "Yeah, okay. We'll leave now, and find out who did this, and— and—"

"We'll string them by their shitty little plotting hands. And nip this whole total war thing in the bud."

* * *

* * *

* * *

It's the next, next morning.

Some sunrise was lost on the curtained train-fugue across increasingly sparse towns and villages. Last night, paranoia-induced insomnia kept them on watch until they'd finally arrived not in _their_ countryside, but one with a similar charm: territorial flocks of sheep, flatness for miles, then the lone hearth, alight with the sizzle of stew and candlefire.

One house was dulled. As they approached, unfinished walling shifted out from the nebulous dark. It had been weathered all the way down to its spine on the northwest side, but every other wall had held steadfast. Hulking several dozens of feet higher than the typical chalet, the brothers realized that what they'd originally thought to be the outline of shredded roofing; those were the remnants of gothic spires. This carcass had washed up from a bygone era.

Al was the first to recognize that "it must be from before Amestris."

There was no door to speak of, probably worn down along with the rest of the northwest wall.

When they peered into the building's maw, they saw, haloed by stained glass, an angel on the far wall. Or a sculptor's impressive approximation of one. Centuries of wear and tear didn't seem to have effaced the point of her lance, or the fine layering of her drapery. On the statue's face, the artist had captured a grimace of reluctant benevolence. There was writing at the base, but it was impossible to read.

So Ed went first, then Al followed. The debris of overturned pews crunched at their feet. Ribs and ribs of stone flowed along the church's cavernous insides and gathered into thicker columns at its base.

Finally, the plaque became legible. It was an old dialect of Amestrian, but the basics were intuitive.

In large, gothic letters, it proclaimed:

"SAINT ALTA

SHE WHO—"

There was a stone in the way. Al shifted it.

"SAINT ALTA

SHE WHO BY HER HOLY LANCE

DID NOT KILL US

EVEN THOUGH SHE REALLY COULD HAVE."

That's what sold it for Ed. They'd sleep here on their first night as fugitives. At the foot of a woman powerful, but merciful. A Chief Corne type, if you will.

So, when he wakes, he wakes to the snarkiest smile he's ever seen on an angel. He'd been dreaming and, in that way dreams do, _his_ dribbles greedily out of its confines, leaving afterimages of burning men and the tang of bile and ash.

It still feels like he hasn't slept. Just switching in and out of shitty realities.

He tries to nestle deeper into the pew, but its wooden hardness hugs back. Ed hangs his least asleep arm down to feel for his tin can buddy.

"Al, mmtoo sleepy to open eyes, where are you?"

It's echoey, but quiet.

Ed waits a few minutes, then rotates himself off the bench and somewhat upright. It's just him and the statue in the church.

 _Maybe he's found another room._ "Brother!"

A sheep bleats. He walks out of the unwalled side, and overlooks hills and hills of rolling green, without a suit of armour in sight.

Ed checks his watch. _7:00 AM— why the hell would Al be out at the asscrack of dawn?_

He wanders back into their shelter, with no leads. Just some sheep at his heels.

But there Al is: big suit of armour, leaning at the angel's feet.

 _I swear he wasn't there before_. Ed rubs his eyes, not even quite believing himself. "Oh god, we're people who _pray_ now?" He calls out.

Al whips around- jittery- like a bomb has gone off. "You— came back."

"Uh, yeah. Either this or running off with… sheep? What are you on about?"

"I thought that you'd— Two years, without a note— Of course I'd—" He's not quite breathing right, hitting ragged patches before he can form full sentences.

"Woah, calm, Al. Calm. Two years, you said. I just woke up."

"Tha— aah— no." Al stops. Shakily, he works his way to the top of an inhale, then all the way back down. Then, he tries words again. "Two years. You— I thought— left two years ago. Then, I went to the city and…" he wavers "... so many people. None of them were you. I had to come back. This— was the last place that _you_ —"

"You saw me. Two years ago. No fucking way."

Ed reaches to hold his brother, as much to soothe his own growing panic as Al's. "Shit. Come here. I'm here now. I'm..." But his fingers never press up against metal. He plunges straight through, sunk up to his wrist. "...Here."

Mesmerized by his own immateriality, Al's gasping grows less wobbly.

"Oh," he hiccups, "okay, so I'm dead instead."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading ya'll! Btw I'm constantly editing this story to try to make it flow better so I'm sorry if it suddenly uh "morphs, changes..." etc. ;)
> 
> And an FYI that to cover up dem gaping plot holes, Al does sleep in this universe.
> 
> Alright please review/kudos/etc!


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